


Those Two

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, mention of conversion therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26504062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: In which the 4077 has double trouble as unlikely friends Charles Emerson Winchester III and Maxwell Q. Klinger square off against Majors Houlihan and Burns while the base is under the command of both Colonel Blake and Colonel Potter.
Relationships: Frank Burns/Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Summary: In which Major Winchester arrives at the base, choppers bring in the wounded, meatball surgery occurs, and Klinger falls at the Major’s feet, Majors Burns and Houlihan scheme, and a Hawkeye auctions off a nurse.
> 
> L_M_Biggs wrote me an epic, so this one is a sister, answering epic that will not live up to Silk, Cognac, and Cigars, but which is offered in the spirit of true friendship and thanks!

The heat flicked a forked tongue behind his ears, behind his knees, at the back of his neck. Sweat prickled, sure to show on a uniform made for the parade ground. He loosened the white scarf bound at his throat, swiped the shine from his forehead with its tassled edge. Charles Emerson Winchester III, unceremoniously delivered to a war-wracked little country, looked as though he had stepped off of the pages of one of Radar’s science fiction magazines; he was the image of a man stranded on a hostile planet that astronomers had not yet glimpsed or named. 

He frowned at the dirt road under his feet. It had already robbed the shine from his boots. No matter. This hell-spot, close enough to the front to receive actual gunfire, for the love of scrod, was merely a stop along his way. He had no doubt it would furnish an amusing anecdote or two for his letters to Honoria… though he would omit any mention of latrines - she was a lady and should be spared even imagining the smells that were at this moment assaulting him from all sides. 

And then things got  _ interesting.  _

In a near deserted medical unit in Uijeongbu, two NCOs began to cross the compound… and this wasn’t the beginning of a joke, though, given the costumes, it might have been the beginning of a play. 

“You don’t have to get your back up over this, kid. It’s not a contest. I just like ‘im.” This line came from… well, Charles didn’t actually know what to call him… her… Then his eyes lighted on the insignia: a Corporal. That’d do. A Corporal with stubble, a skirt, and shoes that tied up his legs in ribbons. They were so delicately pretty that Winchester believed that the dust might be persuaded to spare them out of admiration. 

“Because he lets you steal his cigars,” said  _ another  _ Corporal, this one in gender appropriate clothing, looking out at the world through Coke bottle glasses. 

“Because he’s like the kinda dad I woulda picked if you could pick.”

“He made you give up dresses!”

“Just for a minute. ‘Til he saw how everybody missed ‘em.” 

Charles chuckled at this. The pretty Corporal had pretty legs; in this wasteland, they probably would be missed. 

“You had  _ hives _ ! You didn’t sleep for three days!”

“How’s that different from any other week here!?” 

Silence fell for a beat; the glasses wearing Corporal looked to the sky. 

“Choppers?” asked his be-skirted sidekick. 

“Ambulances, too. Better run for it, Klinger. We’re gonna need everybody.” He closed his eyes a second just to be sure. “And I mean  _ everybody _ .” 

Corporal Klinger took off at a sprint (no mean feat in heels) and Winchester was left looking to O’Reilly. “You must be our replacement surgeon, sir. C’mon. Better scrub up.”

That was how Charles ended up working beside men and women (and Corporals) he’d never so much as been introduced to. In a way, he preferred it. His work could make his introductions for him. Or so he thought. Too quickly he was in over his head as body replaced body replaced body under his knife. He had read about combat surgery, but, from what he could tell, it had not evolved since the Civil War. He wasn’t a surgeon, here; he was a butcher. 

It all seemed terribly callous at first and something must have shown on Charles’ face, because the CO, hair as white as his mask, came over to make his acquaintance and outline the ethos of the place. “I’m Colonel Sherman T. Potter - one of two Colonels, as you’ll discover - and here at our little hospital, the ultimate reconstruction of the patient isn’t our endgame.”

Charles raised an eyebrow without dropping a stitch. 

“Alive enough is good enough,” the Colonel continued. “So work fast and well - but don’t waste time being dainty.” 

_ This is Hell’s operating theater,  _ thought the Major.  _ An abattoir.  _ Blood dripped into his boots and cooled there, congealing. And there was no indication that it would ever end… or even slow. 

Around him, inane chatter was carried on as lives were lost and won. The Chief Surgeon, Captain Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce flirted with a nurse who was clearly a knockout even when obscured by scrubs. Father Mulcahy administered last rites, eyes, Charles wondered to see, bright with weeping. Another surgeon, Major Frank Burns, demonstrated his lack of tolerance as he berated a young African American nurse. It was a very poor showing and Charles knew instinctively that the man’s tone would have changed if the girl’s coloring could have been. 

“Put a clamp on his mouth, sweetheart,” Captain “Trapper” John McIntyre shot back, restoring Ginger’s spirits and giving Charles hope. Perhaps the whole unit wasn’t prejudiced; maybe this Frank was just a bad egg. 

Head Nurse Major Margaret Houlihan then demonstrated where  _ her _ allegiance lay, pulling rank on McIntyre - despite the fact that the man was elbow deep in mangled intestines, hunting shrapnel fragments with nothing but a keen eye and gloved fingers, closing wounds as he went. 

Colonel Potter oversaw the operating room, taking the basic surgeries to free his team up for specialty work, lending his hands whenever a bleed occurred or a complication arose. In the compound, his counterpart, the affable Henry Blake ran triage with his surrogate son, Corporal Walter “Radar” O’Reilly. 

Charles observed them all, learning their patterns of speech, hearing their gripes, witnessing their fear break out in dark moments, joined to them now through blood, the red mist of it seeming to hang over them, fine droplets spattering everything. 

As he worked, he watched the pretty Corporal dart in and out, bearing bodies - in  _ heels _ . When exhaustion made him numb, the clip-clop-clatter of those not so sensible shoes cheered him and he kept going. 

***

“Major? Major Winchester? Major Burns has something he wants to say about your surgical technique.”

Charles blinked at this blond woman with her loud voice and brazen manners; he was so tired that his eyeballs felt as though they had been rolled in sand. “Yes?” he managed, wondering what kind of man Burns was that he needed a nurse to introduce his remarks.  _ A doctor for the lecture circuit?  _ Charles wondered, giddy with lack of sleep. 

“No, no, no, no.” A hand slipped around his waist and a man louder and more brazen than the nurse intervened. “Maybe you didn’t notice,” Hawkeye said to Margaret, “But we just did twelve straight hours of meatball surgery in there. Do you drink, Winchester?”

_ Here, Charles. Have another. It will help _ . Charles forced himself not to shiver. “No. Thank you, no, Captain. I merely wish to ascertain where my luggage went that I might sleep.” 

Pierce hollered for Radar, then patted Charles on the shoulder. “You did okay in there.”

Charles felt no pride in his performance. “For an intern?” he sniped, pride wounded and smarting. 

“For a guy who traveled under sniper fire and didn’t get to sit his bags down. For a guy who’s never done meatball surgery before.” 

“Thank you. But I trust you won’t take it amiss if I say that after my temporary reassignment is concluded, I do not intend to attempt such ‘Italian-based’ surgical techniques ever again.”

“None of us do, pal.” Then he turned him over to Radar.

The diminutive clerk chattered as he led him, friendly as a pup. Outside, they were joined by the other Corporal. Radar usually paid attention to his gifts, but Klinger, like Hawkeye, was a “noisy” creature; lots of emotions roiled off of him more or less constantly. And right now he was trying to get a read on this Winchester. His sense of the Major was different from anyone else on base: silver and blue and sharp and filled with pain. 

But then Corporal Klinger dropped right into the compound dirt. 

“Klinger!” Radar sounded disgusted, dropping to his knees to shake him. “Klinger!” He turned to Charles. “It’s a section eight thing,” he explained. “The dresses, ya know?” 

But Charles was watching the slender thing’s chest. “I am a thoracic surgeon, O’Reilly. Do you know what that means?”

“Not a clue, sir.” 

“It means that I can say, with certainty, that this is not a section eight thing. Get the door, Corporal.”

“And your luggage?” 

Charles rolled his eyes and, tired as he was, hefted the Corporal in a skirt, a shawl, and a gauzy top of some cheap and unknown fabric that wasn’t rising and falling in the nice, easy way Charles would have preferred. 

Klinger’s eyes fluttered as his hands moved over his torso, assessing. 

“Welcome back, Corporal girl.” 

Klinger made a soft sound low in his throat. 

Radar glared at his friend. “You’re not supposed to pull this stuff on new officers! He hasn’t even been here twenty-four hours!”

Charles made a calming gesture at him. “I am not a new officer, Corporal. I am merely passing through. The Corporal, however, was passing out. Are you wearing a corset, my dear, to be so breathless and so very wasp-waisted?”

“That’s his actual waist,” Radar said, sounding proud. “You don’t need that junk, do you Klinger?” 

Klinger shook his head; his dark eyes were riveted on Charles. Then a word passed his lips that he hadn’t uttered since being sent, scared and angry and wearing frills both close to his skin and over his underthings, to this awful place, “Sorry, Major.” 

“It was no trouble, Corporal. But do be sure to ask someone for aid if you  _ do _ add corsetry to your wardrobe. You will harm yourself if you do not take care.” 

Klinger agreed, Radar helped the Major get settled, and Charles ended his first day at the 4077th with his hands folded behind his head on a velvet pillow, thinking of pale ribbons laced up dark, strong legs. 

***

Major Margaret Houlihan knew something was afoot on the base. Those unmilitary clowns, Pierce and McIntyre, had entirely too many of the key personnel under their thumbs. They ran roughshod over Henry (had from day one), were in league with that sneak, Radar, and buffaloed Potter. That left only Margaret and Frank to man the fort: to uphold the military discipline and rigor of the base, to make it a proud American holding on contested soil that could be won over to Communism at any time. 

Tonight’s confab centered on their favorite complaint: Pierce’s position as head surgeon. 

And their plan went like this: 

“Henry has his Chief Surgeon, Frank, and he’s making your life a misery. If Potter creates a chief for  _ his _ staff, it at least gets you out from under  _ Pierce _ .”

“But Margaret,” Frank whined. “You say that like  _ I’ll _ never be Chief Surgeon.” 

“There’s always hope, my darling. But Winchester, well, you know how many chest cases we get here. Darling, do you want to spend your Thursday nights trying to escape from a packing crate? Or trying to relax when your tentmates are dressed in monkey costumes? Or cleaning oatmeal out of your boots?” 

Frank opened the file they had purloined - Charles’ bonafides. “Harvard. I could have gone there if I wanted to, you know.”

“Of course, Frank.” Her eyes danced as she glanced over more personal information. Winchester was unmarried - and  _ 6’ 4.”  _ “Oooo, he served with Colonel Baldwin.”

“Baldwin? Isn’t he the one with the leather jammies?”

Margaret made her expression quite blank. “Well, Frank, I know so many Baldwins. It’s a common name. I am sure that  _ this  _ Baldwin will be just thrilled to help out a unit so near the front lines. Signing him over to us, it’s, well, it’s heroic!” 

“But six surgeons, Margaret? They won’t let us keep six surgeons.” 

“Frank, we had six surgeons working last night and surgery went for twelve hours.” 

“Maybe we should try to have another one sent then.” 

Margaret turned so he wouldn’t see her roll her eyes. 

***

Auctioning off a nurse… it didn’t say much for the 4077th’s record on gender relations, perhaps, but Charles had been ensured that the underlying cause was a good one: sending a bright local boy with an affinity for medicine back to the States to be trained as a doctor. He would then return to Korea to train more Koreans in advanced medical techniques; it was goodness with a ripple effect and, much as Hawkeye Pierce might rub him the wrong way, it was, Charles saw, a pretty noble attempt to counteract the ugly legacy they were sure to have here (buried mines, ruined villages) with something positive. That it took enough alcohol to bathe the village oxen and the sacrifice of a lovely young woman… Charles tried not to think about that too closely as he surprised himself by placing his donation in O’Reilly’s outstretched hand.

“He’s fine now,” the Corporal said then, apropos of nothing. 

“I’m sorry?” 

Walter looked uncomfortable then, pushing his glasses up his nose and fidgeting with his hat a moment before deciding to trust this surgeon-on-loan. He’d seen the gentleness in the man’s hands when he’d examined Klinger; the man might be incredibly arrogant and he might have thirty-seven walls between himself and his emotions, but his hands had given him away. This, Radar knew, was no Frank Burns standing before him. Hands like that had to have a big heart behind them, even if Charles was treating that heart, in Radar’s opinion, like the Wizard of Oz: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” 

“Corporal Klinger,” Radar explained. 

“How did you…?”

“It’s why they call me Radar, sir. I ‘pick up’ things from the people I’m around.” Seeing something close to horror come into Charles’ features, the clerk hastened to reassure him. “Don’t worry, sir. Everybody has their own little room in my head. I don’t tell nobody nothing about anybody else.” He wished he was brave enough to pat Charles’ arm. He felt like the man could use it. 

But maybe there was another gesture that Charles would appreciate more. “I’ll get that file for you, Major.”

“File?”

“The medical one? You’re our, what did you call it? Thursasics? Guy, right?”

He  _ had _ been thinking about that file, had been thinking about it since Klinger’s breathing had evened out, in fact. And here was a boy from an Iowa farm, dandelion wish-feathers practically fresh on his line dried clothes,  _ plucking  _ the notion from his thoughts - and seeming to like him just fine in spite of it! “Thoracic, yes. That… you are a rather remarkable individual, O’Reilly. Remind me never to play cards with you!” But he did not refuse the offer. 

Radar whistled as he went to join Winchester’s donation to the rest of the pool. 

***

“If this doesn’t beat all.” Lt. Colonel Henry Blake very much wanted to smash his floppy hat in his hands, but the lures with which it was studded, many of them of the treble hook variety, made this a poor proposition. “You’re supposed to be regular army!”

Sherman T. Potter was at work on his latest painting - a tongue in cheek scene of Major Houlihan inspecting the troops. “Blake, the closest we got to regular army ‘round here is the regulation-dug latrine. It sounded like a thing you’d put your signature to. And you know Pierce - I’m sure he has a plan to protect the young lady’s reputation.”

“Just ‘til  _ he  _ can be the one to ruin it,” Blake muttered. 

“Might be that’s  _ her _ plan,” Sherman said amiably, touching up Klinger’s hat (troops at the 4-0 double natural were  _ unique _ to say the least; he dabbed a black fleck of rage into Margaret’s eyes). “Pierce is plenty popular.” 

Blake still looked glum. “Houlihan and Burns are gonna be on the phone to some hotshot by the book General before they make it to the second toast,” he predicted. 

“I’ll head off the brace of Majors,” Potter reassured him. “Just so happens that I Corps sent us an unlabeled box of meds that needs cross-checked. We need to examine every pill - make sure the cross-hatching matches the Rx. It’s a job made for Burns.” 

“And you don’t mind chaperoning?”

“Not a bit. You best get over to the mess, Blake. You know how down at the mouth Klinger gets if you’re not around to compliment his dress.”

***

Radar smiled when he saw his friend holding him a spot in the mess. “So what are you gonna do if you win Lieutenant Dish, Klinger?” he teased. 

“Throw her back, I suppose.” He lit a cigar. 

“That’s  _ fish _ .”

“Well, maybe we can swap fashion tips.” 

“Wonder what Major Winchester would do if he won?” Radar asked then, all innocence. “He sure talks a lot about Tokyo.” 

Something passed over Klinger’s mobile features that went too fast for even Radar’s gift to get a read on it. “Hold this, would you?” He passed Radar the cigar. He stood then, approached the fishbowl housing the names for the raffle. It only took a second to remove one of the names. 

“Hey!” Radar scolded him. “You can’t eat that!!”

“You were right when it was a jeep,” Klinger admitted. 

Radar just shook his head. Sometimes he couldn’t parse Klinger’s everyday stunts from his section eight antics, but he was pretty sure he’d just seen something entirely new. And he thought he knew what it was connected to. “So, what happened with you the other day?” 

He didn’t have to say anything else. 

And  _ this _ was definitely something new. 

Maxwell Q. Klinger was blushing. 

And  _ whispering _ . “I don’t know.” He was abashed, excited, happy, and adorable. “I  _ really _ don’t.” 

Before Radar could dig more deeply into the Winchester quandary, Hawkeye Pierce stepped up on the stage (two mess tables pushed together) with his robe and scepter (a plunger) and the fishbowl of destiny. “And now,” he announced to the assembled camp, “the incomparable Lieutenant Dish will dip her sinuous claw into the bowl and pick the lucky winner.” 

Winchester entered the mess as Hawk’s merry voice rose, as the Lieutenant smiled. 

Before he could announce the winner, gunfire strafed the mess. For the first time outside of the OR, Hawkeye’s hands were bright with blood. 


	2. Market Correction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the 4077 suffers a loss, gains a desk, Potter seeks an official perch, Margaret seeks a new conquest, and Mulcahy outsmarts the black market.

Surgeons did not work on dirty tables with kitchen implements while gunfire rang off of tent poles and parked jeeps and people wailed and ducked and prayed. 

_ Usually _ . 

Radar - perhaps his gift had been at work again - had somehow navigated the danger to return with packs of surgical implements. They had wounded - and this time they were their own. 

Feeling walled off and underwater (he had never been  _ shot at _ before), Winchester read the room. Hawkeye was trying to save the Lieutenant in his arms. The shade of the blood, spattered now on the fishbowl, running into it, told Charles she was already lost. 

Trapper was trying to help Hawk, or, at least trying to be near when Hawk realized that the body beneath his hands was beyond help. Somehow, absurdly, Charles heard someone say, “She has a fiancé.” 

_ This is war. A slip of a girl nurse sacrificed on a wooden table for nothing.  _

The aristocratic surgeon turned from her eyes. 

“We got more wounded, sir,” said Radar at his elbow. 

“What do you know about triage, Corporal?” 

Radar went white, but Nurse Kellye appeared like an angel summoned by disaster; her eyes were friendly and unafraid. They were all in a sort of crouch because of the gunfire. “I can help, doctor. What do you need?”

_ A chopper to lift me from this hell and deliver me to civilization _ , Charles thought. “The worst wounded. Have the nurses see to the little things - cuts from flying glass. I have seen you ladies in the OR - you are beyond capable. What you cannot do, get to me or to Captain McIntyre.” He surveyed the crowd; Trapper could help, but Burns, Potter, and Blake must be pinned down elsewhere. (Frank would have been tickled to know that Winchester’s thoughts, in that moment, echoed his: a seventh surgeon would have been welcome). “McIntyre? If you would?”

Trapper saw the impromptu operating theater forming around his fellow Bostonian and nodded his understanding. “Ever operated on your knees, Chuckles?” he joked as another burst of gunfire was greeted with screams. 

Charles felt a smirk tug at one side of his mouth despite the blood covering the man, blood that he would soon be smeared with as well. “Not in this, ah, manner,” he returned, winning a laugh. They didn’t dare even to place the wounded on tables; it brought them to near the path of the bullets. 

“Do these sorts of parties happen often?” Charles asked Trapper, sparing a look for Pierce. The man was shattered, but neither he nor McIntyre possessed the skills needed to repair the wound. 

“Often enough,” Trapper admitted, trying to quiet the corpsman under his knife with a genial joking tone, an it-will-be-alright manner that Charles envied. “I Corps will take them out though. I’m sure Radar’s already called it in. Just a matter of time.”

It rocked him. Take them out, Trapper had said. That meant more killing. His mind screamed at him:  _ Surely they deserve it for shelling a medical unit, for God’s sake!  _ But it didn’t sit easily or well with him all the same, the idea of bodies cut down nearby, the idea of deliberately dealing death. 

“I need something to sterilize these instruments,” he muttered. What he needed was a surgical  _ team _ : anesthetist, nurse, the lights cranked up to ensure that yes, that was tissue and not mere shadow beneath his knife. 

“I gotcha, Major.” 

He didn’t recognize the voice at first, but the mere and sudden presence did something to both invigorate and relax him. And terrified as the Corporal’s dark eyes were, his hands were capable as they vodka-rinsed the tools he needed. 

“Thank you, Corporal.” 

“Seems fair, sir. You helped me out the other day.” 

Charles noticed two things. His impromptu assistant was visibly trembling with fear...and there was a caramel-sweet note of something that Charles could not quite place (wonder? surprise?) in the young Corporal’s voice. 

_ Did you imagine, Corporal girl, that I would step over your pretty legs and leave you lying in the dirt?  _ Even if he hadn’t been a doctor, Charles was a gentleman by breeding and training both. 

“Well, you can be of a help if you will take the corpsman’s hand here. Deep breath, Furtelli.” 

Klinger saw what was wanted and hooked his arm with the injured man’s to keep him anchored, talking him calm, holding his gaze, smiling even though Charles knew that sustaining the expression must have been cutting at his mouth like blades. 

When this minor operation was over, all three men were sweat soaked and Charles longed for the bright, modern, sterile world of an actual OR, even as another bullet zinged through the rafters and sent debris drifting down. 

“That was a good showing, Corporal,” Charles said as they rinsed the instruments again, ignoring the pink wash of blood that dripped to the floor. “You have a knack for caretaking, it seems. You have some training as a nurse?” 

Klinger tilted his head to the left, a gesture those who had served with him for longer than forty-eight hours would have recognized as a gentle expression of confusion. “No, sir.” 

The surgeon was surprised at this; he’d had trained, board-certified nurses at his elbow that had faltered more easily than this frightened young man - and that had been under conditions considerably more civilized! Klinger didn’t know the names of all of the instruments, but Charles didn’t have to teach him how to fit them into his palm, and Klinger timed his movements to those of the man he was assisting, eyes flicking from Charles’ face to the face of the man or woman being tended. His tremors increased with the pace of the gunfire, but he stayed put. He didn’t relish the sight of blood, clearly, but he didn’t quail at it, either - and he wiped away tears and worse without making their “patients” feel self-conscious. 

Winchester carefully explained the next tasks he required of him, both of them pressing tight to the floor when a liquid whick-crack announced that another shot had been fired too near. And as they worked, knee to knee on concrete, Klinger reassuring terrified and agonized men and women who typically cared for the wounded, but who had never considered becoming wounded themselves and were as frightened by the role reversal as they were by the scalpel’s threatening gleam, Charles praised his efforts. “Nicely done. Pressure there, I think.” He was amused to see Klinger smooth his skirts under him as he shifted to wrap a bandage; it was a gesture that announced that he was not new to his costumes, whatever O’Reilly had said about a dodge. 

“Good man,” he said, as Klinger anticipated his need for scissors and he actually felt the man gladden beside him. Charles recognized the gesture, or, at least, the hollowness behind it. Somewhere along the way, someone had done a number on Klinger’s basic faith in himself, had made him feel small or a burden or deeply inferior. 

Using quick glances, Charles took in the callused hands, the dark skin, the chandelier earrings of lilac glass and oblong silver beads. He thought, in that moment, about what his father and namesake would see - and say. “This country ought to close its borders, Charles,” he had been known to thunder over his morning papers (five and ironed by a servant to prevent wet ink trespassing on his fingers or his suits). “Immigrants- trash! We have all the laboring bodies here that we require.” 

As for the dresses… 

The memory was 70% a smell: the chemically treated and chemically cleaned straps… the plastic tubing. Sensation followed next - the way the needle always burned as it pierced the vein. Charles remembered a biology class where he had learned about traumatic insemination; those needles, the chemicals they forced into him while he was bound and helpless to resist, had always seemed to fit the definition. Then silver light shearing his thoughts, sheets of pain, his eyes forced open and made to look on what he did not want and had never wanted. Deviance brought punishments. But no one seemed to mind this Corporal Klinger. Maybe he had found a way to be himself (his selves) quite unmolested. Charles dearly hoped it was so, wished for something to chase the metallic, lightning rod taste from his tongue. 

“Corporal, there is a handkerchief in my pocket, if you would.” He indicated the sweat shining on his face. 

“Gotcha, Major.” His hands were quick, cool, and gentle. More impressive was his ability to charm the terrified personnel that Charles tended; Max told them who Winchester was and reassured them about the man’s skills, joking that they could not have afforded such care back in the States. 

_ A new twist on American imperialism _ , Charles thought, wishing for sharper instruments or better anesthetics.  _ The export of cheap healthcare! Keeping costs down by abjuring all those pesky expenses: hospital buildings, X-Ray machines, autoclaves,  _ **_gloves_ ** … 

These introductions freed him from doing more than confirming, to the scared individual beneath his knife, whose clothes he was manipulating and removing more often than not, that they would be okay; it felt a little like being introduced before a talk!  _ The esteemed Dr. Charles Emerson Winchester III will now perform a daring rendition of “Preventing a Pneumothorax in Korea,” _ he thought, his own fear making him giddy.

But the important thing was that he did prevent it. “Hold him up so that he can breathe, that’s a good girl. Nearly, nearly. And done. Easy, settle him back down. I hate to have my work lain to waste by gunfire.” 

“The gunfire stopped, Major. Awhile ago.” 

“Oh, so it did.” He hadn’t noticed, too busy focusing on respirations per minute and pulse. “We are through?”

“Yeah. You did good work, sir.” He smiled and Winchester thought about payment. What was the price tag on a smile such as that? 

“I had capable and competent assistance.” 

The Colonels, Radar, and fresh hands arrived then to carry the wounded to actual beds. Margaret and the nurses who had not been pinned down in the mess snapped to and disinfected wounds and administered medication. Potter clapped Winchester on the shoulder. “Hell of an introduction for a temp surgeon. I’m told you did some top flight sewing with some 4-O silk and a prayer.”

“We did not have to sacrifice the Corporal’s embroidery, thankfully,” Charles joked, nodding to the designs that embellished Klinger’s skirt. 

“Your handkerchief woulda gone first, sir,” Klinger returned and his seriousness made Potter laugh. 

“Radar said you were filling in so Kellye could triage,” Potter said, turning to the Corporal. “I thought he had to be seeing things, knowing how scared you get. You’re going to ruin that chance for a section eight if you keep finding ways of being useful!” 

And he  _ was _ shaky as he stood, but Winchester was as well. “I have no wish to endanger the Corporal’s escape attempts,” the surgeon told the CO. “But you do yourself a disservice, Colonel, if you don’t train him as a nurse.” 

“Major Houlihan would fight me on it, tooth, nails, and clusters, but I’ll keep it in mind.” Then he moved off to take stock of the damages. Blake and McIntyre had already seen to Pierce; sedatives had taken him under into needed oblivion. 

As they parted at the door - new holes marking the wood, Winchester nodded his gratitude to the Corporal. “Pity about the nursing, though,” he said just before he turned. “You could bring off the outfit, no?” 

*** 

It was bad luck to bring black to a war, so the camp assembled to honor the life and mourn the loss of Lt. Dish (now never to be Mrs. Deeblaise) wore dress uniforms or neatened fatigues. The Father’s meager late summer garden had furnished the flowers. 

The officers sat together, mostly to keep Hawk from falling apart. Trapper had told Henry that the Maine surgeon had spent most of the night saying, “I picked her and it killed her.” 

“He thinks he has some kinda reverse Midas touch,” said Trap. “Everything he touches gets ruined.” 

Hawkeye’s grief and anger had fastened on a new target. “Margaret, how can someone as lovely as you be such a ghoul?” He snatched the clipboard from her hands. “You’re counting pills at a wake?! She was one of your nurses!” 

“And this medication can save 100 men and women. Give me that, Captain!” 

“No streptomycin? Hell of a way to mind the store,  _ Head Nurse _ .” 

Margaret rocked back a bit but then steadied and let him have it, going off about privateering and the black market. Potter came over and made a soft sound at them. “Quiet down, boys and girls. This is a bad enough piece of work without the officers looking like they’ve got no sense. Now, it’s my decided opinion that half of you  _ don’t _ have two wooden nickels to rub together, but there’s no reason to let the enlisted know that. They look up to you.”

They all grew a bit humble at that, frowned, shuffled, looked away. 

“Now, Margaret,” Potter took the clipboard. “A memorial is a place to take stock of your feelings, not your inventory. Pierce, if you can’t behave yourself here, Colonel Blake wants to see you.” 

Mostly to get away from Margaret’s cold stare, Pierce went. 

*** 

“Look at this, Pierce,” Henry said as he entered the office. “It’s what a man needs, far from the security of home. Roots, solidity, strength. I’ll bet you don’t know what kind of wood this is.” 

“It’s oak,” Hawk said softly. 

He wondered in what manner of coffin Lieutenant Dish will be laid to rest. He knew her to kiss and to flirt with and to undress in his daydreams… should he know  _ this _ , too? Was it the sort of information that lovers should exchange in this place? In a war that they struggled to label, name, define, and contain as anything but what it actually was? Personally, Hawk wanted the cheapest pine his VA benefits could buy. His dad had gone all out for his mother’s coffin. It had been oak, too, - a gleaming carriage to bear her into the setting sun. To this day, he imagined her, eternally youthful, features blurred by time, greeting the young men he lost, eternal princes. But the expensive nature of the coffin had not lessened his father’s grief. 

“Nope, it’s oak,” Henry hurried on, rubbing something lemony into the wood. “Do you know why I called you in here?”

“To find something to keep me distracted?” 

Henry shuffled, sheepish. “Would that be so bad? Look, it’s something important. You’re not just our best cutter. You’re a brilliant operator. Get us the medicine we need. Out black market the black market.” He saw that Hawkeye wanted to refuse. “Take Trapper.” 

***

Signals went white-silver in Radar’s mind and pulled him across the camp. There he found what they called “the depot.” Colonel Potter and Corporal Klinger were inside. The depot was a place to store things lost and found, mislabeled supplies, the unwanted and cast-off and miscellaneous. Hearing the Colonel call it such, Klinger gave a self-deprecating smile and joked, “Sounds like me.” 

Potter clapped his shoulder. “Horsefeathers, lad! Radar has his mind-reading, but you, son, are a top flight scrounge!” 

“That’s what you got me for, sir? Getting stuff?” He surveyed the dust and the camouflage netting and the cheap crates banged together with government-issue nails that were probably worth a fifth of a cent and had cost $.34 a piece. He noticed a pyramid of crates. “Are  _ all  _ of these tongue depressors, sir?”

“Looks like.” He puffed at his cigar. “Can’t say that I care for what that says about how long this ro-day-o is like to drag on, either.”

Klinger shook his head. “With that many tongue depressors, we could build you your own office, sir!” 

Potter tapped him on the nose, then winked at Radar. “O’Reilly’s rubbing off on you. My own office is  _ exactly  _ what we are going to build. So snap to it, Klinger. Requisition whatever you need to run the office for MASH 4077 and ½. Typewriter ribbons, furniture, locks, stocks, and barrels. Got it?” 

Radar got it alright. “ _ Two  _ offices? Two company clerks?” 

“Now, hold onto your hayseed, son. This ain’t no coup against Colonel Blake. Between you, me, the lovely Corporal here (those are nice earrings, Klinger), and the kettle, the army made a mistake splitting the command of this garden spot between two commanders. But you know what the army hates more than inefficiency?” 

Klinger and Radar both shook their heads. 

“Admitting it made a mistake. So, it might be that they do. It might be that they reassign me or send Henry home, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. And if I’m here, I need a place to hang my hat. What do you say, Corporal? Can you get me a roof and some walls.”

Klinger’s eyes sparkled. He liked a challenge; he  _ loved _ being needed… but he didn’t like that mistake bit. His presence on the base was a mistake, too. 

***

Radar’s brow scrunched. The “medicine shed” was different than supply proper. It housed the stuff that nobody was interested in stealing: talcum powder, petroleum jelly, aspirin, and joint wraps - and it wasn’t supposed to be locked. He yanked on the door (Korea’s intense heat and cold warped wooden frames) and when it gave, a red-faced Margaret Houlihan swept out, snapping something about sneaks and spies. 

Major Winchester looked to O’Reilly with frightened eyes and a pale, sweaty face. “Walter, of all the men condemned to this wretched outpost, you are the finest.”

Knowing what had occurred, O’Reilly winked. “Next to you, sir?” 

Apparently he had a reputation, already, regarding his references to his family. He spluttered something, now,  about breeding and gallantry. 

O’Reilly just smiled. “My neighbor bred Arabian horses, Major, you know that? I understand all about bloodlines.”

“That’s very decent of you, Walter, but actions count, too. And yours counted... well, you were very brave. If I had a medal, I would pin it on you myself.” He did not tell the sweet young man about the tortures (called therapies) he had endured or why Major Houlihan’s advances had made his heart pound. They had tried to train him: desire this, want this, cherish this,  _ only _ this. It hadn’t worked… but it had left echoes, resonances, scars. O’Reilly gave him a pained look that said that Winchester didn’t need to say it. 

The clerk had years of experience quieting spooked animals. He promised the tall, frightened man that Margaret would not spread rumors, then gave him  a gift: the file he had promised. 

It soothed Winchester as perhaps nothing else could have and they re-emerged into the day. As they did, Radar felt his gift go off like a pinball machine. Winchester needed to stay. For himself. And Radar knew exactly who could help him keep the man around. 

But he wouldn’t leave the man completely unarmed in this brave, new world. Before they parted, he cautioned the Major, “Be careful, sir, of Majors Houlihan and Burns.” 

Winchester raised a brow. 

“Just be careful.” 

*** 

That evening’s mess was a triumph. Hawkeye and Trapper returned with drugs secured from the black market. 

“We almost had to trade ‘em Henry’s desk,” Trapper confided, making the CO glare and Radar chuck a roll at him (nearly as deadly as a grenade). 

“But Father Mulcahy saved the day,” Hawk finished for him. “Black cloth, it turns out, trumps the black market.”

“It was the  _ white  _ collar,” Mulcahy corrected, all gentle jocularity. 

Henry was just happy he still had his desk. In Korea, it was often the small things that saved one’s sanity, that saved the day. 

As bodies filtered out into the evening to write letters home or play baseball, Winchester asked the CO about examining Klinger. The file had caused him concern. “It must be soon, sir. I am due to ship out in just a few days.” 

Potter gave him a look then that Winchester could not read. Then the man put a hand on his shoulder. “About that…” 

To be continued... 


	3. Requiem for a Rat Fink: down for the count Burns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Charles is permanently assigned to the 4077th (welcome aboard, Major), Klinger expands his costumes, Margaret spies, Frank commits crimes against fashion, and the Major and the Corporal become friends.

Radar pushed open the door to the only solo-NCO tent on base. No one, it seemed, was all that eager to share space with a bunkmate who wore dresses. Given the way Klinger’s signature collection was multiplying, this was probably just as well. The clerk found his friend surrounded by mounds of fabric, some loose, some in rolls, like a dragon perched on its nest of treasure. Klinger’s treasures were sequins and satin and fake flowers, but Radar enjoyed looking on them after the dust of the compound. At the 4077 th , the only bright thing to be found was blood – and that didn’t precisely lift the spirits.

“Whatcha working on, Klinger?” He saw the color and grinned. “Wedding gown?”

“God, I hope so.” Then, realizing he’d spoken aloud, he deftly secured the needle in a pincushion and blushed  _ again _ before mumbling, “Nurse’s uniform, actually.”

Radar looked forward to that as he knew Henry would, too. Klinger’s tight-fitting jobs really classed the place up, especially when he started accessorizing. He wondered what their new Major would think about being such an inspiration and grinned. Radar didn’t think he’d take it half so badly as he’d taken Margaret’s (admittedly rather predatory) remarks in the supply rom.

“Couldn’t believe it when I heard you jumped right in with all the blood and stuff. You still haven’t said what’s going on, y’know,” Radar told him, giving him a cutie-pie smile that was half teasing and half aww-shucks.

Klinger looked down, picking a pattern out of a skirt that had never entirely satisfied him. “Since when did anyone have to _tell_ you anything?” Then he ducked his head, if that was possible, _farther_ , tucking it almost into his chest. Radar had never seen Klinger embarrassed and, considering his many states of dress, undress, and lingerie, there were times when he ought to have been (not to mention times when he ought to have been downright _cold_ ), so he couldn’t look away. Finally, in a very small voice, Klinger said, “He called me Corporal… but that wasn’t all. When we were working, he said, ‘good _girl_.’”

Radar didn’t have the vocabulary for exactly what it was that Klinger wanted to be, or exactly where he existed between those drawings Henry used for health lectures – Figure A and Figure B. But his gift functioned just fine; this wasn’t, not as far as Maxwell Q. Klinger, was concerned, a small thing. “That wasn’t the only time.”

“Huh?”

“When you, uh, fell, before. He said it then, too.”

Klinger’s eyes went bright as the moon that lovers in the pictures Radar liked best always promised to pull down for their beloveds. “He did?”

“You weren’t faking?”

“I would’ve been a lot more graceful if I was.”  _ And worn a better slip _ . He had a buttercup one he was really fond of. Thinking of those gentle, agile, huge hands pushing that silk up made him almost swoon a second time… and he wasn’t sure that Radar had the patience for all that.

“I was saving this for lunch, but I’ve got a piece of news that’s gonna make you smile, then…”

***

As the two Corporals were catching up, OR was seeing to local patients – a gesture of American goodwill meant to counteract, somehow, the fact that some of the wounds were caused by leftover bombs in fields, triggered during plowing or planting; or mines; or bombing that went off course. It left a bad taste in Charles’ mouth, especially since, for the foreseeable future, he was billeted at the 4077 th . Potter had said that it was because he was needed and did good work, but Charles had pressed him and learned that his superior in Tokyo had been influenced by the elder Charles Emerson Winchester.

He had known the agreement upon shipping out: return as a war hero… or do not return. Classically educated, it conjured Spartan associations in him, though no doubt his father would have gotten in a dig about his weight; what shield could bear so soft and ungainly a man? In a particularly daring moment, Charles had once called his father Minos - a man determined to lose his son in a labyrinth so as not to face the fact that he might  _ not _ be his son at all. He’d escaped the labyrinthine halls of boarding schools in the far north, had endured the dangerous twists of more than one institution. War, it seemed, was to be the final – and fiercest – oubliette his father could muster and, with his grandmother gone, Charles knew that no hand would be raised to help him.

Potter had held his eyes, then, as he railed about being taken from civilization. “You’re wanted here, Major. And you can be wanted here for your own darn self. When’s the last time that happened?”

He hadn’t been able to answer.

And now, he supposed, he was wanted, at least, for the gifts that lived inside of his hands. Was that better than being wanted merely for the blood that may have run through his veins? Charles wasn’t certain, especially as he was still struggling to keep up with the star of OR and Post Op, Hawkeye Pierce. The man had assured him – all the other doctors had, except for Frank and Charles sensed that calling the man a doctor was pretty much just a professional courtesy – that their dexterity around lace-curtain injuries caused by fragmentation grenades and the bone splintering work of high-velocity ammunition was earned through sheer repetition. There wasn’t much call for such work at Boston General. But he still felt slow and clumsy, feelings he’d thought he’d escaped, once, when he’d learned to do surgery on the tiny hearts of premature infants – and do it well. Here… here he was still learning.

And a little lost.

The situation with Margaret had left him very uneasy.

Rumors followed a wealthy, unmarried man in his thirties. Charles blamed Austen with her oft quoted line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” 

_ Someone _ , Charles thought,  _ ought to have asked said  _ **_men_ ** _ what exactly it was that they wanted.  _ Maybe they would have been too terrified to answer… or maybe someone would have written a romance he could actually lose himself in and enjoy. He had, a few times, tried to write a living script for his own life and romance… but the narrative had quickly failed or been aborted… or scrapped by his father with his long reach. At this point, confirmed bachelor was beginning to feel like his story – maybe even his epitaph.

“That’s ‘yes doctor, darling,’” he heard Hawkeye flirt with a nurse. Envy slithered through him, filled him with such concentrated venom that he wouldn’t have been surprised if it changed his eye color.

Hawkeye could be himself – even in an operating room (such as it was) under harsh lights that did no one’s features any favors.  _ Doctor darling, indeed _ , Charles huffed internally. Then, without meaning to, thought (wondered – and was filled with a touch of wonder, too):  _ Corporal darling _ ? He really  _ was _ , the Corporal he’d picked up and dusted off. The Corporal whose file was in his footlocker. Would it be wrong to say so?

He shook the (apparently fast-weaving) spiders out of his brain and told them to roll up their decorative cobwebs. This was the army! He couldn’t go around assigning endearments to Corporals! But the work under his hands was uncharacteristically easy, so his brain was uncharacteristically active.  _ Even Corporals in  _ **_dresses_ ** ? it asked.

_ Especially Corporals in dresses _ ! he told it… 

But the envy he felt toward Pierce remained.

***

Margaret Houlihan still smarted from her encounter with their new (and unhappy about it, if the shouting had been anything to go by) Major. She’d won higher ranking men. More handsome men. Better men. Charles’ attraction had been his unmarried status. One thing she hadn’t won yet was Frank… away from his wife. Her anger and fear probably should center on the North Koreans and their allies that sent ruined and broken young men to die under her care… but Louise Burns was a close second.

And now there was this blue-blooded Bostonian who was not going to take her away from the situation. She listened to Hawkeye and Trapper flirting with the new nurse who had rotated in from the States. The girl still looked fresh as a daisy and had China blue eyes that laughed at Hawkeye’s jokes. Winchester never even glanced her way.

_ Hmm _ . Did he think he was too good for nurses? 

She smiled. Well, he was no longer too good for the 4077th. Not anymore. 

***

“You cannot go on guard duty with ribbons under your chin, soldier!” 

Charles stopped to listen to the commotion, kept to the shadows that pooled at the building’s edge. Even from a distance he saw Klinger’s eyes flash with a frenetic anger that he leashed but failed to hide. 

“I’m not a soldier, Major.”

“You represent the U. S. army, you degenerate!” 

Charles felt his jaw tighten. As if in sympathy, Klinger’s shoulders tightened, too; his spine straightened; Charles couldn’t help wishing the polished rifle butt in his hands would swing out and make Frank jump. “The army pins ribbons on generals all the time, sir!” 

Frank snatched the hat off of his dark head, shoving him a little in the process. Then he dropped it in the compound dirt and trod the straw under his thick, ugly boots. The ribbons bore tread marks. Then he strode off, moving his head side to side in his smug little dance of triumph. His squirmy smile made Charles think of worms. 

Charles wanted to pick up the little defeated hat. He wanted to smooth the ribbons, to wash the dirt from their Easter tulip colors and tie them, renewed, under the Corporal’s chin. Instead, he fell into step beside him and offered his arm. Heels were difficult at the best of times. On a rough road, in the dark, shaken with fear and with anger - Charles imagined that a tightrope might have been just as easy to manage. 

Klinger glanced at him, lightning still sparking in his gaze. “Sir?” 

“I am a gentleman, Corporal. Or I was in the civilized world. Please.” 

Radar sometimes took Klinger’s arm or gathered his skirts to keep them out of the dust or the mud, but Radar was a friend. 

“Can’t, sir.” 

“Because you have had quite enough of medical doctors turned officers tonight?” 

Klinger stopped abruptly; to his credit, he only wobbled a little. “I  _ really  _ have. I liked that hat.” 

“So did I. Corporal, what transformation needs must occur to allow you to trust me?”

“That hat bit helped a little, sir.” 

“Ah, well,” he cleared his throat, at once flustered and pleased. “What else? Who would you trust?” 

“A friend?”

Charles believed that he knew why this was phrased in the form of a question. Klinger was an enlisted man (unwillingly at that). He wore dresses (very well, but still against military regulation and social mores). Charles also believed (his physician’s ego appearing on scene) that he knew how to relieve some of his companion’s anger, fear, and distress. “Let me do this now, tonight, because you are trembling. Then, permit me the chance to win your friendship?”

Klinger seemed to consider. “It’s probably not worth enough for you to try. I wouldn’t want people gossiping about you, sir. You heard what Major Burns called me, I’m sure.” 

“The Major is worthy of being called neither an officer nor a gentleman. Please, Corporal, take my arm. This is a horrible place, but we may both navigate it better if we need not do so alone.” 

Klinger did and tried his hardest not to feel shaky about it all. “Thank you, Major.” 

Charles smiled and escorted him home. 

Margaret watched this all with great interest. She scarcely tolerated Klinger’s antics, his complete disregard for military order, but Klinger was young and an immigrant. Charles was a doctor. What was he doing sullying his reputation with someone like  _ that _ ? It made her wonder about how frantic he had been to escape her embrace. Did the camp have two deviants now? She vowed to keep her eyes open. 

*** 

The Trapper-Monster boxing tournament was an event. Klinger went because he loved to bet on things and Charles went because he had vowed to win the pretty thing’s friendship - and he was curious about what, precisely, a fashion conscious Corporal might wear to a boxing match. A silky black shirt, it turned out, was just the thing, accented with silver designs, army issue pants, and silver shoes whose ribbons terminated under those pants somewhere. Charles wondered if he ever had any trouble undoing them… 

He nodded to Radar and Igor as he took his place on the other side of Max. These ncos were wary of him, yet, but Klinger’s smile of greeting softened everything. 

“Thought this would be too low class for you, Major,” he said by way of greeting. 

“Decidedly. I thought you might have a hat in need of protection, however, and found I could not stay away.”

Klinger threw his head back in a laugh. “You’re somethin’ else, Major. Glad you came.” 

Charles smiled; it had been some time since anyone but Honoria had been glad to see him. The fight  _ was  _ barbaric, of course, the lightweight Trapper dancing away from his hulking opponent, the priest and head nurse screaming for blood. 

When things got too dicey, Charles turned his eyes to the Corporal, admiring his flushed cheeks. Klinger was a physically expressive creature; he leaned into the officer to speak, or nudged him to gain his attention. Too long without touch, Charles felt himself lighting up at the slightest point of contact… then feeling silly and sad at doing so. Klinger caught his frown. 

“Wanna take off, Major?”

“Do you not have money riding on this?”

“Radar’ll keep an eye out for me.” He winked. “You’re probably worth the few bucks anyway, right?” 

They fell into step together, Charles shortening his strides to match those Klinger took in pretty shoes. The 4077th certainly wasn’t home - might never even feel  _ tolerable _ \- but he focused on those silver ribbons and breathed more easily. 

Unfortunately, the two didn’t walk alone for long. Frank Burns appeared and he shook his head at the sight of them, a gesture of disappointment. 

“Fraternizing with enlisted men, Major? Where’s your pride?” 

“My time and my company are mine to spend.”

“Not in the army, bub.”

“Everywhere and always,” Charles corrected, tone and bearing imperious. “Though I am glad we are meeting this way, Major.”

Frank looked uneasy. 

Charles leaned in to speak to him, the gesture not unlike that of a cobra rearing before a strike. “Major, if you harm another piece of the Corporal’s wardrobe, I will see that you make reparations for it - and they need not be monetary. Am I understood?” 

Klinger tried to protest, to say this wasn’t necessary. 

Frank spoke over him (boorish, Charles thought, as always). “He’s breaking army regulations! You’re an officer!”

“I, like the Corporal, am an unwilling captive, rather. And  _ you  _ are to leave his creations alone - yes?” 

“You can’t order me around! I’m a Major!”

Frank’s diatribe became squawking then, as Charles grabbed his collar and held the man suspended in the air, feet dangling. Calm and collected as a conductor about to direct a symphony, Charles waited until Frank quieted and repeated his request. This time, Frank agreed. 

Sitting him down, Charles made to walk off when Frank made the mistake of lunging at Max. With one hand, Charles swept the slighter man behind him. With the other, he leveled Major Frank Burns. 

Eyes wide as dinner plates, Max looked up at his (very strong) protector. 

“Did you see that, Corporal? Major Burns slipped on that bit of wire and has taken quite a spill. Help me get him to Post Op?”

“Sure thing, Major. Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I will tell you later.”

“I’ll buy you a drink,” Max promised. “Friends, huh?”

“Friends,” Charles agreed. 

TBC … 


End file.
